philosopherking1887:

luxury-loki:

Thor, Loki and ‘The Warriors three’ attempt to travel to Jotunheim via the bifrost, ‘Thor’ (2011) // Loki’s face in that last gif makes me so sad. Like I love Thor, and he has developed so much as a character, but it is clear in this first film that sometimes he let his role of heir to the throne over cloud his actions towards his brother, and he probably was quite bossy.

Hey, @foundlingmother, let’s see if I can start a food fight…

Looks like you’ve mostly got a consensus of opinion in these notes. And here I was ready with a spoon full of mashed potatoes.

It looks like it just hasn’t reached the people who would disagree. Most likely none of them follow me, so the right combination of people would have to reblog for those mashed potatoes to become useful.

Thor, Loki and ‘The Warriors three’ attempt to travel to Jotunheim via the bifrost, ‘Thor’ (2011) // Loki’s face in that last gif makes me so sad. Like I love Thor, and he has developed so much as a character, but it is clear in this first film that sometimes he let his role of heir to the throne over cloud his actions towards his brother, and he probably was quite bossy.

Hey, @foundlingmother, let’s see if I can start a food fight…

thebaconsandwichofregret:

mizstorge:

thegestianpoet:

thegestianpoet:

i can’t believe thor wearing arm guards with loki’s helmet on them in avengers AND thor having a strand of loki’s hair braided into his own hair in age of ultron are both real things that the costume department did and loki in ragnarok still has the gall to ask poor thor “did you mourn me?” like yes loki you made your jock brother so sad that he started accessorizing

@redwoodriver @agent0hio the receipts. the hair I thought at first was jane’s but in other shots it’s 100% black and silky lookin….. like hey marvel? I just wanna talk. i just wanna talk

The thing is that unless these details are explained to the audience within the film, they might as well not have existed. Just like J.K. Rowling announcing to an audience at Carnegie Hall that Dumbledore was gay, but not mentioning it in the book that had just been published, it makes no impact on the way viewers interpret the film. And. unless the MCU makes the significance of these costume details explicit, it’s going to remain questionable as to whether Thor did these things in memory of Loki, or whether they’re immaterial as far as the films are concerned.

That’s not really the same thing. There is no textual evidence for Dumbledore’s sexuality, just Jo’s word.

The costume IS the textual evidence in Thor, it’s not announced but it is part of the text. My high school English teacher would allow me to use the armour and the braid as evidence in an essay, there is no evidence in the text for Dumbledore.

Small details are important in film, tiny things that aren’t necessary to the plot but if noticed enhance it are called World Building, your Dumbledore example is a lack of World Building

The gauntlets are indisputably a tribute to Loki; the hair thing is less clear. I saw someone speculating that it’s probably just a black ribbon, in which case it could be a sign of mourning for both Frigga and Loki. If it’s Loki’s hair… well.

What even is Loki’s plan in Thor?

princess-ikol:

philosopherking1887:

foundlingmother:

I’ve discovered there are people who believe Loki intended from the beginning of Thor to commit genocide. I don’t understand how anyone could possibly interpret the movie this way.

Here’s everything we know about Loki’s plan prior to the jaunt through Jotunheim: Loki allowed a hostile foreign power into Asgard, resulting in the deaths of the Einherjar guarding Odin’s Vault. I’ll ignore that this power’s trying to retrieve the object that will allow them to revitalize their dying homeworld–Laufey probably would use it to get revenge, and

Loki didn’t let them in to help them with that. He helped them to ruin Thor’s coronation. Then, he precedes to use Thor’s militant personality against him. Thor’s chewing at the bit to go to war with Jotunheim. Loki merely states that there’s nothing Thor can do without defying their father. Not exactly a master feat of manipulation, guys. We also know Loki tells one of the Einherjar where they’re going, and tells him to go to Odin. That’s it. That’s everything. We don’t even know why Loki ruined Thor’s coronation. He tells Laufey it was for a bit of fun, and I’m actually inclined to believe that’s part of it. Personally, I headcanon he meant to demonstrate his own skills to Odin. Thor starts a war with reckless violence, and Loki ends it with careful diplomacy and manipulation. He might have been overestimating himself, but I believe that was his plan.

Why do I separate Loki’s plan into before and after Jotunheim? I would hope that’s self-explanatory, but I guess not. Loki discovers on Jotunheim that he’s a Jotun. No, it’s not confirmed until later, but this is when he realizes (because he’s not stupid). When Thor and Odin argue at the Bifrost, Thor repeats how much he’d like to wipe out the Jotunar, and Loki takes a deep breathe to calm down. Anyone who believes this realization’s anything but world shattering for Loki can unfollow me right now. Jotunar are talked about like the Asgardian equivalent of the fucking boogeyman. Loki says this. You can’t grow up in a culture so disgustingly racist and not freak out when you discover you’re part of the group their racist against. Especially when, for your entire life, your brother’s been saying how much he’d like to kill your entire race. World shattering. Any plans he had probably went out the fucking window.

I’ve got other reasons to think Loki’s plans couldn’t have been the same throughout the whole movie. First, I go back and forth on whether Loki expected Odin to cast Thor out. Even if I give people that he knew Thor would be banished, I’ve no clue how some people think Loki knew Odin would fall into Odinsleep. Frigga states in the movie that they weren’t prepared for this. Now, perhaps some people believe Loki caused it, but I don’t get that vibe whatsoever. It’s fine if you want to headcanon that, but I don’t think there’s any evidence to state with absolute confidence that’s what happened. It always seemed to me that Odin went to sleep because he’s under a lot of stress and Loki screaming at him’s the final straw. He’s been putting the Odinsleep off. That’s why he meant to make Thor king. Also, Loki seemed pretty surprised and upset Odin fell into Odinsleep, and he didn’t have an audience. He didn’t need to lie in the vault.

So when and why does he contemplate genocide? After discovering he’s a monster (his words), Loki’s initial goal to make Odin proud becomes ten times more important. Now it’s a matter of proving he’s worthy of being called Odinson. He’s also trying to kill the part of himself that he can’t accept. He murders his biological father, and states that Laufey’s death came by the son of Odin. This murder and attempted genocide are external expressions of his self-loathing. This isn’t an excuse for his behavior. He fucking kills people. He’s the villain here, and I only seek to explain his behavior. I don’t know why people hate the thought that Loki might be more complicated than a privileged pissbaby prince. He’s having an identity crisis and a mental breakdown. Also, he’s not trying to prevent Thor’s return because he wants the throne and power. He’s preventing Thor’s return because Loki’s just realized that Thor’s the real son. He already believed he couldn’t hold a candle to Thor, and discovering he’s Jotun cements that. He’ll never be Thor’s equal, in Odin’s eyes, and in his own eyes (the whole internalized racism/self-hatred things a real bitch). That breaks him.

Sidenote: I think there’s evidence to suggest Odin does hold Thor and Loki to different standards, and legitimately favors Thor (my dad had this problem of loving my twin, who’s adopted, but very clearly favoring his biological daughters, and now favoring his son above everyone). Thor and Hela get banished, whilst Loki’s punishment for similar crimes (less than Hela’s and worse than Thor’s) would have been death if not for Frigga.

My analysis is far from unique, but I had to write this because I just rewatched Thor and I’m committed to not erasing elements of Thor and Loki’s characters for the sake of the hero/villain thing. Expect a post about how Thor can be wrong (le gasp!) and is still a good person and the hero within the next few days (I’ve got to find and quote the scripts for Thor, Avengers, and TDW for that one).

Also, I wonder if some of the people who seem to ignore Loki’s internalized racism and mental health problems come from a background of reading comics? In the comics, Loki’s always known he’s a Jotun, so he doesn’t have the same identity issues, and he behaves even worse. Or maybe they just don’t like Loki or villains you can sympathize with. Those are my favorites though… *pats Magneto on the head* Is it also woobifying if I bring up that Magneto’s mutant supremacy has roots in his traumatic experiences during the Holocaust? It seems you’ll get accused of woobifying for even acknowledging canonically sympathetic villains as being anything but living garbage.

@philosopherking1887 Forgive me for @ing you, but this was inspired by the meta last night.

Anyone who seriously thinks Loki was plotting genocide from the beginning of “Thor” needs to get their eyes, ears, and brains checked. Tumblr’s black-and-white morality complex just keeps rearing its ugly head and making me hate this site more and more. (That’s the real abusive relationship here: this hellsite and any of its users who still have half a brain.)

shit, are people actually saying that? oh boy, they should be glad they weren’t here in 2012…

I think they were here in 2012-13 and that’s precisely why they’re saying it. Not because there are any good textual reasons for believing it – there aren’t – but just to set themselves apart from the unconditional Loki justifiers/woobifiers as much as possible.

What even is Loki’s plan in Thor?

foundlingmother:

I’ve discovered there are people who believe Loki intended from the beginning of Thor to commit genocide. I don’t understand how anyone could possibly interpret the movie this way.

Here’s everything we know about Loki’s plan prior to the jaunt through Jotunheim: Loki allowed a hostile foreign power into Asgard, resulting in the deaths of the Einherjar guarding Odin’s Vault. I’ll ignore that this power’s trying to retrieve the object that will allow them to revitalize their dying homeworld–Laufey probably would use it to get revenge, and

Loki didn’t let them in to help them with that. He helped them to ruin Thor’s coronation. Then, he precedes to use Thor’s militant personality against him. Thor’s chewing at the bit to go to war with Jotunheim. Loki merely states that there’s nothing Thor can do without defying their father. Not exactly a master feat of manipulation, guys. We also know Loki tells one of the Einherjar where they’re going, and tells him to go to Odin. That’s it. That’s everything. We don’t even know why Loki ruined Thor’s coronation. He tells Laufey it was for a bit of fun, and I’m actually inclined to believe that’s part of it. Personally, I headcanon he meant to demonstrate his own skills to Odin. Thor starts a war with reckless violence, and Loki ends it with careful diplomacy and manipulation. He might have been overestimating himself, but I believe that was his plan.

Why do I separate Loki’s plan into before and after Jotunheim? I would hope that’s self-explanatory, but I guess not. Loki discovers on Jotunheim that he’s a Jotun. No, it’s not confirmed until later, but this is when he realizes (because he’s not stupid). When Thor and Odin argue at the Bifrost, Thor repeats how much he’d like to wipe out the Jotunar, and Loki takes a deep breathe to calm down. Anyone who believes this realization’s anything but world shattering for Loki can unfollow me right now. Jotunar are talked about like the Asgardian equivalent of the fucking boogeyman. Loki says this. You can’t grow up in a culture so disgustingly racist and not freak out when you discover you’re part of the group their racist against. Especially when, for your entire life, your brother’s been saying how much he’d like to kill your entire race. World shattering. Any plans he had probably went out the fucking window.

I’ve got other reasons to think Loki’s plans couldn’t have been the same throughout the whole movie. First, I go back and forth on whether Loki expected Odin to cast Thor out. Even if I give people that he knew Thor would be banished, I’ve no clue how some people think Loki knew Odin would fall into Odinsleep. Frigga states in the movie that they weren’t prepared for this. Now, perhaps some people believe Loki caused it, but I don’t get that vibe whatsoever. It’s fine if you want to headcanon that, but I don’t think there’s any evidence to state with absolute confidence that’s what happened. It always seemed to me that Odin went to sleep because he’s under a lot of stress and Loki screaming at him’s the final straw. He’s been putting the Odinsleep off. That’s why he meant to make Thor king. Also, Loki seemed pretty surprised and upset Odin fell into Odinsleep, and he didn’t have an audience. He didn’t need to lie in the vault.

So when and why does he contemplate genocide? After discovering he’s a monster (his words), Loki’s initial goal to make Odin proud becomes ten times more important. Now it’s a matter of proving he’s worthy of being called Odinson. He’s also trying to kill the part of himself that he can’t accept. He murders his biological father, and states that Laufey’s death came by the son of Odin. This murder and attempted genocide are external expressions of his self-loathing. This isn’t an excuse for his behavior. He fucking kills people. He’s the villain here, and I only seek to explain his behavior. I don’t know why people hate the thought that Loki might be more complicated than a privileged pissbaby prince. He’s having an identity crisis and a mental breakdown. Also, he’s not trying to prevent Thor’s return because he wants the throne and power. He’s preventing Thor’s return because Loki’s just realized that Thor’s the real son. He already believed he couldn’t hold a candle to Thor, and discovering he’s Jotun cements that. He’ll never be Thor’s equal, in Odin’s eyes, and in his own eyes (the whole internalized racism/self-hatred things a real bitch). That breaks him.

Sidenote: I think there’s evidence to suggest Odin does hold Thor and Loki to different standards, and legitimately favors Thor (my dad had this problem of loving my twin, who’s adopted, but very clearly favoring his biological daughters, and now favoring his son above everyone). Thor and Hela get banished, whilst Loki’s punishment for similar crimes (less than Hela’s and worse than Thor’s) would have been death if not for Frigga.

My analysis is far from unique, but I had to write this because I just rewatched Thor and I’m committed to not erasing elements of Thor and Loki’s characters for the sake of the hero/villain thing. Expect a post about how Thor can be wrong (le gasp!) and is still a good person and the hero within the next few days (I’ve got to find and quote the scripts for Thor, Avengers, and TDW for that one).

Also, I wonder if some of the people who seem to ignore Loki’s internalized racism and mental health problems come from a background of reading comics? In the comics, Loki’s always known he’s a Jotun, so he doesn’t have the same identity issues, and he behaves even worse. Or maybe they just don’t like Loki or villains you can sympathize with. Those are my favorites though… *pats Magneto on the head* Is it also woobifying if I bring up that Magneto’s mutant supremacy has roots in his traumatic experiences during the Holocaust? It seems you’ll get accused of woobifying for even acknowledging canonically sympathetic villains as being anything but living garbage.

@philosopherking1887 Forgive me for @ing you, but this was inspired by the meta last night.

Anyone who seriously thinks Loki was plotting genocide from the beginning of “Thor” needs to get their eyes, ears, and brains checked. Tumblr’s black-and-white morality complex just keeps rearing its ugly head and making me hate this site more and more. (That’s the real abusive relationship here: this hellsite and any of its users who still have half a brain.)

overherewiththequeers:

ambelle:

randomingoftherandomness:

rebelcaptain4life:

beheworthy:

It upsets me that his first instinct, even in literal combat scenarios, is to not fight, and how violently everyone reacts to him.

He tries to be diplomatic before engaging in physical combat. Unfortunately for him it doesn’t usually work, but that does not stop him from trying again next time.
This is what makes him worthy.

I feel like this bit of his character always gets left out in discussions a lot.

Poor Thor really just needs some hugs. Everyone around him is nuts.

You know, I never noticed this, and so this JUST got pulled out of my ass– but, like, in the first movie the thing that got him in trouble was that he was so easy to be manipulated into a fight. So…. like, he learned his lesson.

Yeah Thor was very anachronistic and out of character the entire movie. Sometimes I felt like I was listening to a blonde Tony Stark. Or Chris Hemsworth playing himself. I think Thor could be funny while also being in character. Do you agree?

In some ways, but not as much as I feared. Actually, what I was really afraid of was that they would turn Thor into Kevin from Ghostbusters, or he would be the version of Thor we saw in the “Thor: Civil War” video. I was incredibly relieved to see that the stupid line in one of the trailers about Thor having more brains because he has more muscles did not make it into the movie.

The filmmakers were clearly aware of the possibility that Thor would come off as anachronistic and/or Tony Stark-like; Taika Waititi even said in an interview that Thor’s change in diction and demeanor could be explained by his having spent more time on Earth hanging out with Tony Stark and learning about sarcasm. There was room for some movement in that direction, but I think they went too far with it. Thor has shown a sense of humor in earlier movies, most notably in the scene in TDW where he and Loki commandeer the Dark Elf ship with a lot of brotherly bickering, but also in Age of Ultron. There’s a post that I’ve seen going around occasionally with all the instances of Thor “trolling” people in AOU; I think the “I am Thor son of Odin, and as long as I have life in my breast I am… running out of things to say” bit is the most memorable. But it was always kind of an understated humor.

I’ve seen some people saying that they see some of the character change as a reversion to the brash, cocky warrior-prince of the first Thor movie, but with more cunning and caution and a better sense of proportion. I guess I can see that, and I can sort of see how that might have happened as he gained some distance from the traumatic events that turned him into the grave, almost world-weary figure he presented in TDW and AOU… but again, I think they went too far in that direction. I’m trying to stay mostly positive about the movie, because for the most part I did like it, and it was not nearly as much of a travesty of the characters as I was afraid it might be. But yeah, I’ll admit to finding the abrupt character transformation somewhat jarring.

enchantedbyhiddles:

@erinthevampire
replied to your post “Question about the after credit scene of Thor: Ragnarok…[[MOR] The…”

NO>>I REFUSE TO LISTEN TO THIS

I take an ethic course this semester and we had an interesting first lesson about different schools of ethics.

Kantian ethics, that are prevalent in Europe, value intention most. A person is good, when they had good intentions and do something for the right reasons, even if the outcome is horrible.

Consequentialist ethics are prevalent in anglophile (especially US) countries. There the intentions don’t matter at all and only the outcome of an action determines if a person acted in an ethically good way or not.

Explains a lot why people might determine if a person (in this case Thor) is acting good or bad.

OK, I have a lot to say about the original meta post… but the upshot is that I strongly disagree. One of many reasons being that in the MCU, Thor is pretty consistently the representative of Kantian/deontological (i.e., rule-based) ethics, while Odin and Loki lean more consequentialist. (P.S., on Earth I see Steve and Tony representing a similar contrast.) I always read “I’d rather be a good man than a great king” as “I’d rather keep my conscience clean than have to make decisions that trade lives for more lives.”

Now, it may be that now that Thor has accepted the mantle of kingship, he’s converted to consequentialism. But handing Loki over to Thanos is the kind of move that’s standardly used as an argument against consequentialism (or specifically utilitarianism). If Thor encountered Thanos or even heard of him on his travels, he must know how ruthless and cruel he is. He would know, or should be able to guess, what kind of horrific torture he would be condemning Loki to. Is that worth it for the mere possibility of protecting Asgard and Earth? Why should he trust Thanos to keep, or even make, a promise to leave them alone if Loki is turned over to him?

thorkizilla:

Thor (2011) + Thor: Ragnarok (2017):

Thor: There won’t be a kingdom to protect if you’re afraid to act! The Jotuns must learn to fear me, just as they once feared you!
Odin: That’s pride and vanity talking, not leadership. You’ve forgotten everything I taught you about a warrior’s patience.
Thor: While you wait, and be patient, the Nine Realms laugh at us. The old ways are done! You’d stand giving speeches while Asgard falls!
Odin: You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!
Thor: And you are an old man and a fool!
Odin: Yes, I was a fool to think you were ready. Thor Odinson, you have betrayed the express command of your king. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of war! You are unworthy of these realms! You’re unworthy of your title! You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed. I now take from you your power! In the name of my father and his father before, I, Odin Allfather, cast you out!

WHOEVER HOLDS THIS HAMMER, IF HE BE WORTHY, SHALL POSSESS THE HAMMER OF THOR.

Hela’s use of Mjolnir once upon a time lends a whole new context to what Thor’s arc over his movies + the Avengers movies already was–his story is one of an immensely powerful god who must either learn to wield it with care towards others or be lost to evil and violence and cruelty, not only himself but everyone else around him. It lends an entirely new context to Odin’s reaction to Thor’s fight on Jotunheim and his words–words that must have been so much an echo of what Hela may have said once upon a time.

The realms must learn to fear her, just like her father. That he only sits there now and is a fool not to bring the other Realms under the hell of Asgard. And, just as he did with such a heavy heart, he had to cast her out, her violence and cruelty and vanity too much to bear.

Then again he must do the same with Thor.

Where Thor is different (and we do not know how many chances Odin gave Hela, though, she would not have wanted them or used them) is that he finds the strength to look around him when he’s pulled up short. That he becomes worthy of the hammer, that he becomes the great man and great king that his people need him to be.

He rules without Mjolnir, because his power is not sourced to it, his power comes from the same place Hela’s does, it comes from within himself and his people, it’s on the same level as hears. Thor is the redemption of Odin’s line, Thor is the inverse image of Hela and she of him. Where her greed and cruelty only grew, his was erased and nobility grew in its place instead.

I love the ending of Thor: Ragnarok, that Thor may not want the throne, but it only makes him all the more suited to it. That it’s the next step on the journey his story has taken over the course of these movies, that his people need him and he will sacrifice what needs to be, in order to lead them. Not because he wants power or fame. But because it’s right. It’s finally right.

Thor doesn’t need Mjolnir to show that he is worthy in and of himself. It was a beautiful weapon, it was more akin to a friend for all the years he had it with him. But it was still ultimately a weapon and Thor does not need it to remind himself to be a good man or a good ruler. He just simply is.

morethanprinceofcats:

meganphntmgrl:

liliaeth:

meganphntmgrl:

liliaeth:

meganphntmgrl:

liliaeth:

meganphntmgrl:

it’s incredible to me how gamora and nebula’s childhood together was so much worse than thor and loki’s and they were literally raised to hate each other but literally the moment nebula blurts out a vulnerable feeling gamora is like “…oh my god I’m so sorry” and next thing you know they’re saving each other and hugging and stuff and meanwhile, thor and loki,

Thor did the same to Loki though. Apologize I mean.And Loki responded by tring to murder him.

I’m not going to act like Thor’s apology in the first movie as he approached the Destroyer wasn’t coming from a good place, because it was, but there’s a very clear parallel between “I never wanted the throne! I only ever wanted to be your equal!” and “You just had to be better, and all I ever wanted was a sister!” and the fact that the latter caused an actual pause in the conflict and reevaluation of the situation and the former didn’t is telling. I absolutely get why Thor’s apology was basically “I don’t know what I even did to you, but I’m sorry”, but there was a tiny window of opportunity to go “wait, THAT’S what your problem is?” well after that, under very similar circumstances, that was bypassed.

Except that Loki didn’t want to be Thor’s equal. He got that when Thor was banished, and threw it away.

you know, you could make literally just as much of an argument that Nebula had already thrown away her chance at just being sisters in the first movie when she cut off her own hand to spite Gamora and escape and therefore didn’t really want it, but that’s dumb because she’s not a real person, she’s a fictional construct, and we kind of have to take her words at face value instead of remotely imposing an opposing view on them, and the same goes for Loki! amazing.

The difference is that Nebula was tortured thoughout her entire childhood, while Loki just found out he was adopted.

I don’t know how to tell you this, but trauma is trauma is trauma and bad parenting doesn’t have to involve cutting your children up. Loki was raised to fear and hate his own species, so it’s not just that he was adopted, it was finding out he’s literally something his father raised him to despise *as well as* Odin putting them in competition with each other too, in a much more mundane but, to use @morethanprinceofcats ’s term, insidious way than Thanos did with Nebula and Gamora, but it was still psychologically harmful.

The difference between the way Nebula’s arc goes and the way Loki’s does is 100% the result of the MCU needing Loki to stay a villain. Thor goes ‘I don’t know what I did to you, but I’m sorry about it’ and that’s as close as the story ever allows them to get to the kind of moment Nebula and Gamora have in GOTG 2. Thor isn’t responsible for Loki’s mental state or his crimes but there is no room ever allotted for him to try to understand where Loki’s coming from, either. Even if he went ‘Loki, I get it, I understand your feelings, our dad really screwed you over, but blowing up New York isn’t going to fix anything and is still wrong’ it would be an improvement over how it’s actually handled. Acknowledging that his feelings are justified doesn’t mean justifying his actions!

I love love love Nebula with a depth of affection I only rarely feel about fictional characters, but drawing this huge line between her and Loki is just that whole Tumblr thing where a woman can do whatever kind of evil shit onscreen and people will still unambiguously defend her as a Strong Cool Lady, *especially* if she has a traumatic excuse for it, but a man having the same situation is dismissed as just boring manpain. This isn’t even nonsensical inverted anti-male sexism, it’s just plain old everyday misogynistic sexism. The idea that women are just naturally purer of heart than men regardless of what they do and their sadness matters more is a patriarchal concept based in the idea that women are also more fragile than men. Nebula is not a better person than Loki, the narrative just allowed her an opportunity for healing and reconciliation where he got none- and I also feel like if he did, there would be people complaining about it on here.

I get that the Loki fandom of old was obnoxious but Christ, this backlash is no better and no more willing to engage with the problems in the source material.

i do not wanna write thor and loki discourse it is TWO THOUSAND AND SEVENTEEN, i s2g

So we’re introduced to Thor and Loki as babbies and this scene takes place, not incidentally or just as mere exposition, but to demonstrate the dynamic that psychologically sculpted the princelings:

Odin: [scary story about the frost giants and their savagery and the wars with them]
Loki as a child: [terrified of frost giants]
Thor as a child: When i am king, i’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all, just as you did, father!
Odin: Both of you were born to be kings, but only one of you will be!
Loki as a child: [looks petrified and anxious]
Thor as a child: [looks a bit smug and very excited]

When Loki discovers he is a monster by birth, his immediate train of thought is: So this is why I would never be considered for heir! You would never put a FROST GIANT on the throne of Asgard!

And his immediate train of thought is to kill all of the frost giants and win their father’s approval – a literal 1:1 exists between what Loki does in the midst of a visible mental breakdown and what Thor boasted he would do when he was like, 9.

Killing Thor starts to enter into the picture because if Thor returns and ruins his plot he’ll never show their father, he’ll never prove he was any good!

I’m not excusing this, it’s both bonkers and, you know, to put it mildly, unethical. But this is literally 100% Odin’s shitty child-rearing and imperialistic Asgardian values rearing their ugly head. Like Thor started the movie wanting to start another bloody war with the frost giants himself. Loki is not alone in his arrogance, his militarism.

You know what else there’s a 1:1 between? That time in Avengers Loki stabs Thor in a non-fatal stabbing area with a teeny tiny knife and ruefully says “Sentiment” with tears in his eyes, and Nebula choking Gamora in her hand while ready to thrust a blade into her, and then throwing her aside because she can’t bring herself to kill her.

I am not saying that Thor is a bad person for giving up on Loki after this. I’m just saying it’s a clear executive mandate that he do so because it would take only the barest adjustment in his attitude to get him to reach out to Loki, and there’s honestly no reason to believe that if somebody did – genuinely did – empathize with him and validate his feelings about Odin’s wrongdoings, he wouldn’t respond favorably – or at least start to respond favorably, like Nebula does, without committing to anything.

Nebula and Gamora have committed literally all of the same crimes. The only thing Nebula did that Gamora didn’t do was stick with Ronan after Gamora left, and she had no choice in that. Her first words to Gamora when she meets her in GOTG2 are, inexactly, “You ran off with the stone and abandoned me [to Ronan and Thanos] without looking back, and yet here you stand a hero.” This is probably the best moment of holding-heroic-characters-to-some-semblance-of-an-ethical-standard in the entire MCU because that is literally eactly what Gamora did. She wasn’t even assigned to the mission of getting the Infinity Stone; Nebula was, and Gamora immediately suggested Nebula wasn’t good enough to do it (in an environment where, clearly, Nebula not being as good as Gamora was literally grounds for having her mutilated!) and replaced her.

She didn’t offer to go with her by saying it was too important to send one of them. She didn’t ask Nebula to come leave with her. And it’s clear from GOTG that if she had, Nebula would have done so.

Nebula stayed with Ronan because she had nowhere else to go. She stays with him after he acquires the stone for similarly clear reasons.

Nebula: After Xandar, you’re going to kill my father?
Ronan: You dare to oppose me?
Nebula: You see what he has turned me into. If you kill him, I will help you destroy a thousand planets.

No fucking wonder homegirl doesn’t leap on board when Gamora asks her to help – now. After ditching her to sell the orb and get as far away as possible. After leaving her with Ronan and Thanos all by herself. No one has ever cared about Nebula otherwise. No one has ever reached out to her except as an afterthought.

It would be perfectly justified, after Nebula tried to kill her (literally; she would be dead if not for Peter) and all of fucking Xandar (even though Nebula actually ditched Ronan before he made it to ground), for Gamora to go with her Plan A and deliver her sister’s ass to Xandar for a bounty. But she doesn’t, because she realizes Nebula and she were in Thanos’ fucked up web of misery together, and Nebula has good reason to hate her.

By comparison, when Thor, knowing his brother had some kind of a legitimate breakdown that made him do unthinkable things, catches up to Loki again, he chides him, “Do you remember none [of our childhood together]?” and tells him all of his problems with Thor are imagined (and they’re not, by the way! They are certainly exaggerated, but they are not in his head), then supposes that the only reason Loki wants to take over Midgard is to hurt Thor, personally. There’s no effort made to empathize with him, there’s no condemnation of Odin’s keeping the secret of his being a frost giant secret; there’s no telling him that he doesn’t mind, specifically, Loki’s being a frost giant. (This has SCARCELY been brought up in the MCU and I’m so pissed off. What IS continuity, Thor franchise??) I’m not saying Thor is obligated to do this! I’m just saying, seeing how Nebula and Gamora’s relationship plays out highlights that Thor doesn’t do it.

There is just not enough of a distinction between their situations, Nebula trying to kill Gamora and Gamora realizing Thanos and his favoritism is responsible for their interpersonal problems and trying to atone for her part in that favoritism, and Loki trying to kill Thor and Thor never questioning their father, ever, and writing Loki off, to say that Loki is just too evil for a comparison to be made. Nebula and Gamora are two of the best and bloodiest assassins in the galaxy and by the time they make up Nebula happily tried to kill her and left Yondu, Rocket and even baby Groot in the jaws of death, so you better not argue that Gamora owed her any more than Thor owes Loki.

Footnote: I didn’t even touch on Thanos’ role in Avengers as the one who sent Loki to Midgard to get an Infinity Stone for him in the first place (Avengers and GOTG have the literal same plot; GOTG does it better). I didn’t mention that Thanos explicitly had Loki do this under the threat of torture – Thanos, who tortured Nebula, Gamora and their siblings to make them better soldiers, out of benevolence, threatened to torture Loki totally malevolently if he failed – or that Loki shows up in Avengers looking and acting like the reanimated cat in Herbert West: Reanimator, twitchy, half-dead and ready to climb every wall in the building and steal some Infinity Stones, and he’s all out of walls. The narrative comparison between Nebula and Loki is not something Megan or I invented out of whole cloth, it’s right there. But the suits want Loki to be a bad guy, and meanwhile James Gunn is apparently writing this from space itself and that’s why his space scenes are so realistic. That’s the difference.

“I get that the Loki fandom of old was obnoxious but Christ, this backlash is no better and no more willing to engage with the problems in the source material.”

^ This is my feelings basically all the time.